


if it's broke, fix it

by pandabrite



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, One Shot, Short One Shot, lmfao just be nice to ango!!!!, taako's such a tsundere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 13:05:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12748890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandabrite/pseuds/pandabrite
Summary: angus breaks his wand during a magic lesson with taako and angus catches taako in a rare moment of philanthropy.





	if it's broke, fix it

**Author's Note:**

> iiiiiiiii'm still trying to catch up to taz nanowrimo. ha ha ha. day 14's prompt is being caught doing something embarrassing. just a quick and sort of simple thing. i'm tired. it's been a long month but we're gettin' there. i'll be caught up one of these days. the prompt list i'm following is, as per usual, from tumblr user lucretia-the-director.

Angus McDonald stood looking horrified at the mess his backfired spell had caused. Several of the tables around them in the cafeteria had been blown back, chairs knocked askew… Taako was huddled to the side, robe drawn up to protect his face, though now he peered out from around it with narrowed eyes…

And taking the worst damage of them all was his wand… his _first_ wand... his wand that he had earned from helping Leon… that he’d _learned_ the very fundamentals of magic with… was shattered. The small star tip was broken in multiple pieces on the floor, and the handle was snapped in two, blown either direction by the recoil…

“Really, uh… really whiffed that one, huh, kiddo?” Taako straightened himself up from where he’d taken cover, “can’t believe that. Um, not gonna lie, this is a pretty _basic_ spell… but a little lack of self control can really make or break it--”

He was walking toward Angus, and as he approached, he heard something break beneath his boot. Taako gazed down, realizing slowly that he was walking on broken pieces Angus’s childish little wizard wand.

“Wowee…” Taako sucked in a hissed breath, moving his shoe away from the splintered remnants, “way to go, kid.”

“I- well,” Angus was fumbling a bit, fingers twisting into the front of his shirt, “I… um… I’m not sure how that-- I’m gonna be honest, I don’t… _my wand_...” His voice was a quiet whimper.

“Cool it, short stuff, it was an accident.” Taako was chuckling a bit at his, well, his vulnerable, snivelling state. It was a slow laugh at first, barely a chuckle, before he obnoxiously snorted, and then laughed, loudly, “But, listen, kid, you are a _national terror_! Coulda napalmed the whole cafeteria with that one!” He motioned toward their blown back surroundings vaguely.

“Sir! I-- You just said it was an accident-- you’re supposed to be _tea-teaching_ me!”

“Well did I _learn_ you how to fuckin’ torch the place? Or was that one self-taught?” Taako slapped his knee, laughing again at his own words. 

Angus looked, well… he looked a little broken hearted and embarrassed. Tears were welling up behind his glasses, and though he tried to keep them from escaping, they rolled down his cheek, followed by a loud sniffle, “I don’t -- I don’t think I want-- I’m sorry, Sir, I think I’ve decided I’m gonna call it a day, today.”

Taako looked surprised, briefly, before he smoothed himself over, “well, lemme just say, I gotta lot of other excellent ways I can spend this Tuesday evening, little man~”

Angus puffed up his chest as best he could before turning away from Taako sharply… and he walked out of the cafeteria with his head held high. Usually he could overlook Taako when he got mean. Sometimes… Sometimes Taako could be a little thoughtless, sometimes he could be a little blunt… but something about this, this particular instance of him outright laughing at him… It really dinged his pride, it really, well…

He just sort of wanted Taako to be proud of him… for some reason.

Taako hesitated as Angus actually turned away… and then he folded his arms over his chest, puffing his lips out. Fine, if he wanted to be a big old quitter… He’d just been teasing him a little, that was all… and it wasn’t like he even did that much damage. Just a few bowled over chairs and, well, a busted ass wand.

He wrinkled his nose at the sight of it, shattered there on the floor. In his head, he could hear Angus’s whimpered ‘my wand’ at the sight of it...

Nope. _No._ No needlessly philanthropic acts from Taako. If he was lucky, maybe Angus would get over the whole ‘learning magic’ thing, and he really _would_ have his tuesdays back. Wouldn’t that be gift?

Taako waved a hand dismissively and went to head out of the cafeteria, stepping _over_ the shattered wand… and then, God damn himself, he _hesitated._ He pinched the bridge of his nose, huffing a loud and overly dramatic sigh.

What was he thinking?

Well, he was… thinking about kiddo’s busted, sad face at the sight of his wand. And his stupid tears and his… damn unhappy face. Why? Hell, he didn’t know. But for some reason it stuck out in his mind and he couldn’t shake it.

But what the hell was he supposed to do about it..?

Taako stepped back over to the mess of wand shards and knelt down… he pushed them around with his fingers a bit before sweeping them into a piece of his robe. He lifted it and the ruined wand off of the floor and deposited them onto a table.

Okay. 

Okay… what was he doing..?

Better question… _Why_ was he doing?

He-- well, it wasn’t that he felt _bad._ It wasn’t _his_ fault that Angus broke his wand… though he could have warned him how finicky the spell was, and he guessed he could have told him that one wrong incantation would cause the magic to not spread the way it should…

Ugh.

Taako pulled up a chair and sat down… he went to work then, huffing and groaning as he did like it were some terrible chore. He spent a few minutes organizing the pieces of the wand into separate piles. 

He’d… fuck, he’d never reassembled or made a magical item before. Sure, it was just some wood and some crystal, and he was a transmutation wizard, so putting it back together in the physical sense wouldn’t be hard at all… but… the whole magic aspect, the very core and being of a magic wand, and the creator’s original intent… those were all things he hadn’t messed with much…

And yet… as he worked, brows knit in focus, hands carefully piecing this wand back together… he felt as though this were much _easier_ than he originally thought it would be. The sensation was familiar-- channeling his energy into an already existing magical conduit, refocusing the wavelengths of the wand… It… He hadn’t ever created a magical item before, right, so… this was sort of… he was perplexed by and yet very full of himself over it. He was making this wand _better_ than it had been before… somehow. In a way that didn’t make a lot of sense...

He was so focused, in fact, that he didn’t notice a pair of eyes watching him from across the cafeteria… Angus McDonald had come back to collect the pieces of his broken wand, which he had felt guilty about leaving behind for someone else to clean up.

Only to find Taako… Taako who didn’t do nice things for anyone. Taako who wasn’t the greatest at being kind or encouraging in any way… Taako Taaco, huddled over a table, gaze screwed up in concentration… trying to _fix_ his woefully destroyed wand.

_Wow._

Angus didn’t say anything for an immense stretch of time… but when he finally did, he had approached close enough to be right across the table from him.

Taako was finishing up the last few pieces of the crystal star, magically transmuting them together into one solid piece… the work wasn’t perfect, but it was certainly usable once more, and wholly recognizable as _not_ just a pile of scraps on the floor…

As soon as Taako finished, Angus leaned forward over the table, “Wow, Sir-- I can’t believe you were able to fix it!”

Taako fuckin’ leapt right out of his skin. Outski. If he’d been able to, he’d be walking on the ceiling right now, instead of sitting in this chair, looking at this bright eyed kid who was regarding him like he was some kind of amazing hero.

“ _O-Oi vey_ ,” Taako looked visibly jumpy-- shit, dammit, he’d… he’d sort of intended to just deposit the wand somewhere Angus would find it and never take any claim over fixing the stupid thing… and now he’d been caught red handed. 

And Angus could see it. He could see Taako’s mental wrestling match… he didn’t figure Taako would admit to doing something nice just for the sake of doing something nice, and he honestly didn’t want to question it.

Maybe he felt bad for being mean? Maybe he just really liked fixing wands?

“... Taako, Sir, thank you…” Angus beamed, angling his head and folding his hands on the table.

Taako’s cheeks felt hot, and he muttered something under his breath as he shoved the wand across the table, “Yeah, it’s honestly a good thing I got my hands on it, because it was a little lacking in the ‘oomph’ department. You’ve got a better-than-brand new tool of destruction there, now, Agnes. A Taako original. You better, uh… you better handle it wisely.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll help me with that, right?”

“... Look you can lead a horse to water all you want, but…”

“Don’t-- I… that’s not a _great_ analogy for that, but okay, if you say so. So, um… next tuesday, same place?”

“... Yeah, sure.”

“Alright,” Angus held the wand like a precious gift, and he carefully hooked it back onto the lanyard around his neck.

The two of them sat in awkward silence for about thirty seconds. Taako was looking anywhere but at Angus, a finger hooking into the collar of his shirt to tug at it, just a bit… Angus was sort of… wondering if Taako would say anything else, or if that was it.

Well, obviously that was it.

He didn’t expect an apology. Not by any stretch of the imagination. He figured that might be like pulling teeth from him… but, in a way, he’d already gotten one. Angus got up, finally, and he lifted a hand to wave Taako goodbye, “Gonna go give this bad boy a spin. See you Tuesday, Sir… and, thanks again.”

Taako watched him go, his chin resting in an open palm as he lingered there for a while.

And, despite himself, he smiled, just a little.


End file.
